Once on board the yacht they would make for the ocean--he knew the vessel to be large and stanch enough to withstand any storm likely to arise in summer seas--and he knew the government patrol boats guarding the coast were not interfering with the course of American pleasure craft. For two days--longer if it suited the exigencies of his plan as it worked out, and perhaps to the end of the cruise--he would keep Jack at sea; then he would get rid of him at some convenient port. In the meantime Jack’s checks would have gone through Jack’s bank. No one suspected the truth about those checks--so he believed--and it would be a long time before the truth came out in the routine of business. Before that he would have managed to draw the funds out of this secret account--just how he did not yet see--but somehow he would manage it. And all the while they would be cruising southward along the coast, slipping into port when necessary to take on oil. And finally they would make Mexico, where Hilton would find sanctuary--and there or in some other Latin-American State he would start his career anew--his and Nina’s. And evading extradition--for what charge could be formed against him with sufficient evidence to cause a foreign State to give it serious heed?--they would become great people, people of brilliant position, he and Nina. For all the time that he had seemingly been amused at her limitations and pretensions, and all the time that he had been quite willing to fit her into his dubious transactions, all this while Loveman had had one ruling thought concerning Nina--that in the end she should be his. There had been many women in Peter Loveman’s life, but Nina Cordova, all of whose flaws he knew and at whom he was ever laughing, Nina was the only woman he had ever loved. Thus, as the car spun noiselessly through the heavy night, the shrewd, tireless brain schemed on and on--as that brain would scheme on and on, brilliantly, fascinated by its schemes and their working out, until death should bring its blankness.... * * * * * In the meanwhile, some miles back, another car was spinning toward the east and toward the dawn. But before that car had been launched on its flight several things had happened back on Manhattan. When Clifford came out of Le Bain’s house, thrusting the scruff-held Slim Harrison before him, and saw as he had expected that the red car belonging to Jack was gone, an officer in uniform halted before the high stoop. He was holding a woman by the arm, and the woman Clifford saw to be Nan Burdette. “I saw her sneakin’ out the basement door a few minutes ago,” explained the officer, “and as she’s a well-known character, and as she was actin’ suspicious, I thought I’d better see what she’d been up to.” “So they dropped you, Nan,” said Clifford. “I understand--you weren’t of use to them any longer. But what did you hang behind for?” “None of your business,” said the woman.